Congressional races

Looks like U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) took the Christ talk to heart. Last month, the Memphis lawmaker trounced an opponent in the Democratic primaries after she failed to convince Cohen’s majority black constituency that he wasn’t “Christian” enough to represent them. Cohen, among the first Jewish Dems to endorse the presidential candidacy of Sen…. More ▸

Eric Fingerhut attends a session on MLK, Obama and black-Jewish relations. Ron Kampeas checks out an event with Obama foreign policy advisers and then interviews a Chinese convert to Judaism running for Congress. More ▸

Less than three weeks after overcoming an anti-Semitic advertisement from his opponent to win his Democratic primary election in Memphis, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) requested the floor Monday at a National Jewish Democratic Council event in Denver to thank the organization for its assistance. “Ira and NJDC were very helpful,” said Cohen, referring to NJDC… More ▸

We just spoke with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress – we’ll post the video later this evening soon. Ellison talked about how he worked with Jewish supporters in his Minneapolis district to get elected in 2006, and how that could translate into a nationwide model for Sen. Barack Obama… More ▸

A panel of pollsters and pundits at Monday’s National Jewish Democratic Council “Jewish Vote Seminar” agreed that Barack Obama is underperforming among Jewish voters compared to recent historical standards – just 61-62 percent in recent polls of Jewish voters, in contrast to the 75 percent and above that Democrats have won among Jews in the… More ▸

“It’s still iffy, which is freaking me out”: That, according to the New York Times, was what one Boca Raton precinct coordinator had to say about the attitude of some “lifelong Jewish Democrats” toward Barack Obama. The coordinator was attending a Hillary Clinton appearance for Obama in South Florida. More details on the rally in… More ▸

News on some congressional races to watch over the next few months: Could we have a Jewish member of Congress from Alaska? Two weeks before the primary, it’s certainly not out of the question. A poll shows state represenative Ethan Berkowitz is looking pretty good in the race to be the Democratic nominee, and in… More ▸

After Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) beat Democratic primary opponent Nikki Tinker in a landslide on Aug. 7 (read JTA’s story here), New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called it a victory against racism (in this case, against whites) and anti-Semitism: In that Ninth Congressional District of Memphis, a district that is predominantly black in a… More ▸

Rep. Steve Cohen’s (D-Tenn.) victory in yesterday’s Democratic congressional primary wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but his 60 percentage point margin of victory was unexpected–and perhaps a sign why his African-American opponent, Nikki Tinker, was desperate enough to run an ad deemed anti-Semitic by many observers. First of all, if you never saw the ad, which… More ▸

Barack Obama today condemned a television advertisement that portrayed Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) as an outsider because of his Judaism, but Cohen’s campaign manager said he didn’t think the statement by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee would make much of a difference as voters go to the polls today. “These incendiary and personal attacks have… More ▸